# Your Life is Not About You - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 15 Jul 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733587/classic_sunday_sermon_your_life_is_not_about_you.mp3



## Transcript

[0:06] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends. This year November, the first
[0:08] Speaker 1: All Saints Day falls on Sunday, so it gives us
[0:11] Speaker 1: the opportunity to reflect on this wonderful feast day and
[0:15] Speaker 1: more particularly on what it means to be a saint.
[0:19] Speaker 1: You know, one of the advantages of All Saints Day
[0:22] Speaker 1: is that it emphasizes the universality of the call to sanctity.
[0:28] Speaker 2: You know, if you isolate a given.
[0:30] Speaker 1: Saint, you know, Saint Francis Asizi or Thomas Aquinas, they
[0:33] Speaker 1: can seem so egregious, like there's no way I could.
[0:36] Speaker 2: Ever be like that.
[0:37] Speaker 1: But All Saints Day emphasizes, yes, the Canoni is officially
[0:41] Speaker 1: recognized saints, but also all the ordinary people that we
[0:46] Speaker 1: have forgotten about in history, whom God has remembered as saintly.
[0:51] Speaker 1: So it reminds us that being a saint is the
[0:56] Speaker 1: ordinary goal of the Christian life. Let me say that again,
[1:00] Speaker 1: being a saint, it's not exceptionally gregious.
[1:03] Speaker 2: It's the ordinary goal of the Christian life.
[1:07] Speaker 1: Everything in the church I mean preaching, I mean the scripture,
[1:10] Speaker 1: I mean the sacraments, I mean the Eucharists, I mean
[1:12] Speaker 1: everything in the church is meant to conduce to the
[1:15] Speaker 1: place where we become saints, we become holy.
[1:20] Speaker 2: I've quoted before.
[1:21] Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite quotes from lemon Blois, the
[1:24] Speaker 1: French spiritual writer. There's only one real sadness in life,
[1:30] Speaker 1: not to be a saint. When the young Jacques Maritine
[1:34] Speaker 1: heard that, it changed his whole life, and it will
[1:37] Speaker 1: change your life if you let it sink in. There's
[1:39] Speaker 1: only one sadness. You say, Oh gosh, I'm sad because
[1:41] Speaker 1: I didn't achieve this goal. I didn't get the money
[1:44] Speaker 1: I wanted, didn't get the career I wanted, didn't get
[1:46] Speaker 1: the wife or husband I wanted. Well, okay, but those
[1:50] Speaker 1: aren't real sadnesses. The only real sadness is not to
[1:56] Speaker 1: be the person God wanted you to be. If you
[1:59] Speaker 1: let that be come the governing principle of your life,
[2:03] Speaker 1: everything will change. So what does it mean precisely to
[2:07] Speaker 1: be a saint? Well, a saint someone who's holy, okay,
[2:11] Speaker 1: doesn't mean to be holy. To be holy means to
[2:14] Speaker 1: follow the will of God. Okay, what's the will of God?
[2:19] Speaker 2: Love?
[2:21] Speaker 1: That's what God is. That's all God is, That's all
[2:24] Speaker 1: God does. God loves. God is love. To love is
[2:27] Speaker 1: to will the good of the other. Okay, there you
[2:30] Speaker 1: got it. To be a saint is someone who habitually
[2:34] Speaker 1: wills the good of the other. A saint to someone
[2:37] Speaker 1: in whom God is dwelling, in whom the spirit is alive,
[2:42] Speaker 1: who's holy, who loves. Okay, what if you thought of
[2:48] Speaker 1: your whole life now under that rubric. My whole life
[2:55] Speaker 1: is to be attuned to the path of love. Huh,
[2:59] Speaker 1: willing the good of the other. What if I woke
[3:01] Speaker 1: up every morning and said, that's what I'm going to
[3:04] Speaker 1: be about today. Everything else, Sure, I'll do all kinds
[3:08] Speaker 1: of things, but all of it under the rubric, under
[3:11] Speaker 1: the aegis of willing the good of the other.
[3:15] Speaker 2: That's what it means to be a saint. Now.
[3:19] Speaker 1: One of the best places to look to understand this
[3:21] Speaker 1: more concretely are the famous Beatitudes. So at the beginning
[3:27] Speaker 1: of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out these
[3:30] Speaker 1: beatitudes from the Latin beatitudo happiness, happiness. You want to
[3:37] Speaker 1: be happy, be a saint. There's the whole gospel in
[3:41] Speaker 1: a nutshell. If you want what we all desire is
[3:44] Speaker 1: to be happy, what's the formula? Well, the world tells
[3:46] Speaker 1: you a million different things about happiness. Church lays it
[3:50] Speaker 1: out very clearly. Look at the beatitudes. Look first, how
[3:58] Speaker 1: blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
[4:03] Speaker 1: Mercy the lovely Old Testament word in Hebrew has said,
[4:06] Speaker 1: which the King James renders as tender mercy. I've always
[4:10] Speaker 1: loved that love. In the New Testament I got paid
[4:14] Speaker 1: would be like has said, tender mercy. You want to
[4:19] Speaker 1: be happy, You want to be a saint, be someone
[4:22] Speaker 1: whose whole life is about has said again, wake up
[4:27] Speaker 1: in the morning and say, my whole day will be
[4:29] Speaker 1: about expressing tender mercy. That's the key to happiness. Another
[4:36] Speaker 1: way to put it, listen again from the viatitudes. Blessed
[4:40] Speaker 1: are the clean of heart. To be a saint, to
[4:44] Speaker 1: be holy, To be blessed is to.
[4:48] Speaker 2: Desire one thing, you know, the heart.
[4:52] Speaker 1: Call it the deepest center of the person, the organizing
[4:56] Speaker 1: principle of your whole life. To be clean of heart,
[5:00] Speaker 1: unambiguous of heart, single hearted. Kirkergar the philosopher said, the
[5:08] Speaker 1: saint is someone whose life is about one thing. I've
[5:11] Speaker 1: always loved that. Again, it doesn't mean the saint has
[5:14] Speaker 1: a monotonous life. It means everything in the saint is
[5:17] Speaker 1: gathered because the saint's heart or deepest center, is focused
[5:24] Speaker 1: on one thing, which is has said, which is tender mercy,
[5:29] Speaker 1: which is the love that God is. Now watch everything
[5:33] Speaker 1: else in the saint's life, from work and relationships and
[5:37] Speaker 1: friendships and practical life and entertainment and everything else. Fine,
[5:44] Speaker 1: but all of it is gathered according to one great principle.
[5:49] Speaker 1: You're clean of heart. You know what makes you unsaintly,
[5:53] Speaker 1: unholy and therefore unhappy is to be divided in heart.
[5:59] Speaker 1: We know that right part of me wants to go
[6:01] Speaker 1: this way, the other part wants to go that way.
[6:03] Speaker 1: I've got four or five things that are governing my life. No, no, no,
[6:08] Speaker 1: one thing. One thing. You're clean of heart. You know
[6:13] Speaker 1: what you're about. Now another way to put really the
[6:16] Speaker 1: same thing. I'm just going through the beatitudes.
[6:19] Speaker 2: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, lovely righteousness,
[6:28] Speaker 2: being set right, doing the right thing, being the kind
[6:32] Speaker 2: of person you're meant to be. What do you hunger
[6:35] Speaker 2: and thirst for?
[6:36] Speaker 1: I'm preaching to myself here, everybody. I shouldn't be wagging
[6:39] Speaker 1: my finger at you. I'm wagging my finger at me.
[6:41] Speaker 2: What are we hungry and thirsty for? What? All kinds
[6:45] Speaker 2: of stuff?
[6:47] Speaker 1: I'm hungry and thirsty for success. I'm hungry and thirsty
[6:50] Speaker 1: for power. I'm hungry and thirsty that people will like me.
[6:53] Speaker 1: I'm hungry and thirsty for bodily pleasure. I wake up
[6:57] Speaker 1: in the morning thirsty for these various things. You'll be happy,
[7:04] Speaker 1: you'll be holy, You'll be a saint if you hunger
[7:06] Speaker 1: and thirst for one thing, righteousness that means doing.
[7:12] Speaker 2: The will of God.
[7:14] Speaker 1: Again, think about this now, fellow sinners, when you get
[7:17] Speaker 1: out of bed in the morning, ask yourself that question,
[7:22] Speaker 1: what do I want?
[7:24] Speaker 2: What do I want? Today? Now?
[7:26] Speaker 1: You can parse that out in different ways. I want
[7:28] Speaker 1: to you know, I want to get to work. I
[7:30] Speaker 1: want to do this and that. I want to accomplish
[7:32] Speaker 1: these various projects. Yeah, okay, fine, But behind and above
[7:37] Speaker 1: all of those things, what do you want? If you're
[7:42] Speaker 1: super honest, you'll uncover some of these attachments.
[7:45] Speaker 2: Well, you know, deep down, what I want is.
[7:48] Speaker 1: To be a big worldly success. What I want, deep
[7:51] Speaker 1: down through all these things is for everybody to like me.
[7:54] Speaker 1: What I want, deep down is for my ego to
[7:57] Speaker 1: be the most noted.
[7:58] Speaker 2: You know.
[7:59] Speaker 1: Okay, that's the way we sinners think. You want to
[8:03] Speaker 1: be holy, happy, a saint, hunger and thirst for righteousness.
[8:11] Speaker 1: What if you went through your day now, think about
[8:13] Speaker 1: those with every decision. What do I want? What do
[8:19] Speaker 1: I want? Do I want to do the right thing?
[8:25] Speaker 1: Do I want to follow God's will? Do I want
[8:28] Speaker 1: to follow the path of love? Or something else? Because
[8:31] Speaker 1: there's only one thing that your life should be about.
[8:35] Speaker 1: If you're divided in heart, you're not going to walk.
[8:37] Speaker 2: This path really helpful.
[8:40] Speaker 1: And then, lastly, on these sort of positive beatitudes, blessed
[8:45] Speaker 1: are the peacemakers they would call the children of God.
[8:49] Speaker 1: Trust me, when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, when
[8:53] Speaker 1: you want one thing you're clean of heart. When your
[8:56] Speaker 1: whole life is about he said, or tender mercy, you
[9:00] Speaker 1: will produce peace around you. Trust me, Trust me who
[9:04] Speaker 1: are the peace makers, those who follow this path, the saints.
[9:11] Speaker 1: It'll happen as night follows day. It'll just be the
[9:15] Speaker 1: natural consequence of this great orientation of your whole life. Okay,
[9:22] Speaker 1: now I've been kind of hinting at this. For all
[9:24] Speaker 1: these positive attitudes, there's kind of a negative attitude. We
[9:29] Speaker 1: have to overcome, and you also see it in these beatitudes. Listen,
[9:35] Speaker 1: blessed are the poor in spirit? Luke's version simply has
[9:40] Speaker 1: blessed are you poor? How might we read this?
[9:46] Speaker 2: Blessed? Are you happy? Are you?
[9:48] Speaker 1: You're a saint if you are not preoccupied with wealth?
[9:54] Speaker 2: One of the principal distractions from the path of holiness
[9:58] Speaker 2: is wealth.
[10:00] Speaker 1: Think that will make me happy, That will make me
[10:03] Speaker 1: happy if I just get enough of now fill in
[10:06] Speaker 1: the blank. You have a house, or the car, or
[10:08] Speaker 1: the bank account, whatever. No, you will, not, in fact lucky.
[10:13] Speaker 1: Are you blessed? Are you happy? Are you if you
[10:16] Speaker 1: are not attached to material things and wealth? Listen again,
[10:24] Speaker 1: blessed are they who mourn? And I know this can
[10:27] Speaker 1: sound almost perverse, like what do you mean? Blessed are
[10:29] Speaker 1: people that are that are sad and depressed? This is
[10:32] Speaker 1: some kind of weird you know, masochism? No, no, read
[10:37] Speaker 1: it this way.
[10:38] Speaker 2: Blessed? Are you happy? Are you saintly?
[10:41] Speaker 1: Are you if you are not attached to and addicted
[10:45] Speaker 1: to pleasure? Pleasure's good, Pleasure's fine. But if you make
[10:51] Speaker 1: pleasure the sun of your life, pleasure is the one
[10:54] Speaker 1: thing you seek. And boy, there are a lot of
[10:55] Speaker 1: people walk down that road. You're not walking the path
[10:59] Speaker 1: of holiness because you know, sometimes everybody, doing the will
[11:02] Speaker 1: of God means you're not.
[11:04] Speaker 2: Going to be.
[11:07] Speaker 1: You're not going to be find pleasure in the worldly sense,
[11:11] Speaker 1: just as doing the will of God means you're not
[11:13] Speaker 1: going to be rich necessarily in the worldly sense.
[11:17] Speaker 2: Keep going. Blessed are the meek.
[11:21] Speaker 1: Oh, One of the other great substitutes for God is power.
[11:25] Speaker 1: I'm unhappy because I'm not powerful enough.
[11:27] Speaker 2: If I was just like.
[11:28] Speaker 1: Those powerful people, I'd be happy. Give me more power
[11:31] Speaker 1: and I'll be No, you will not. Therefore, blessed are you? Lucky?
[11:38] Speaker 1: Happy are you? If you're not addicted to power, You're
[11:40] Speaker 1: not walking that path.
[11:42] Speaker 2: That's not the.
[11:42] Speaker 1: One thing you want. The one thing you want is righteousness.
[11:46] Speaker 1: Is has said, is tender mercy, is doing the will
[11:49] Speaker 1: of God. And if that means you got to give
[11:52] Speaker 1: up power, so be it. In fact, blessed are you
[11:56] Speaker 1: if you're meek, see not powerful. And then finally, blessed
[12:01] Speaker 1: are you when they insult you, persecute you, utter every
[12:04] Speaker 1: kind of evil against you, falsely because of me? What's
[12:08] Speaker 1: being said there? But how blessed you are happy, holy
[12:11] Speaker 1: Saintly if you're not addicted to worldly honor, there are
[12:16] Speaker 1: a lot of people that walk that path.
[12:18] Speaker 2: What my life is all about is being l liked.
[12:21] Speaker 1: Being honored, getting awards, and don't they think I'm wonderful?
[12:25] Speaker 1: And but if the people don't like me, I fall
[12:27] Speaker 1: into a depression. Well that's just a negative path. How
[12:32] Speaker 1: lucky are you in fact when you're not addicted to that?
[12:36] Speaker 1: Because sometimes, I dare say most of the time, doing
[12:40] Speaker 1: the will of God means you're not going to be ked,
[12:43] Speaker 1: You're not going to be admired. Okay, so you want
[12:48] Speaker 1: to be a saint, that's the one thing you should want.
[12:51] Speaker 3: That's the one thing you should want. The one sadness
[12:55] Speaker 3: in life is not being a saint. Here's the program,
[13:00] Speaker 3: here's the program. Make your whole life about has said
[13:04] Speaker 3: tender mercy, being a vehicle of God's grace to the world.
[13:09] Speaker 3: Rid yourself of all of those attachments and distractions that
[13:14] Speaker 3: are keeping you from walking that path. Be single hearted,
[13:18] Speaker 3: be clean of heart, hunger, and thirst.
[13:21] Speaker 2: For righteousness above all.
[13:24] Speaker 1: And you walk this path that God wants you and
[13:29] Speaker 1: everybody else to walk, you'll be a saint. And I
[13:34] Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I want to be in
[13:36] Speaker 1: that number when the Saints go marching in and God
[13:40] Speaker 1: bless you

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